My Top 10 Chicken & Waffles in the Bay Area

By Tim Costner

Chicken & Waffle @ The Brown Sugar Kitchen, West Oakland.

Here’s 10 versions of chicken and waffles taken from around the California Bay Area. I’ve ranked them according to my own personal preferences, although the middle of the pack could easily be shuffled on any given day. I’m pretty adamant about the top two on this list, however, and have long championed the Brown Sugar Kitchen and the Boon Fly Cafe as my favorites in this category. The Boon Fly Cafe actually offers my favorite version of fried chicken in the Bay Area (Ad Hoc’s fried chicken included), although some of the other restaurants on this list are certainly close contenders. In the waffle category, it’s a bit of a different story; the Brown Sugar Kitchen is the hands-down winner, and every other restaurant is a distant second. Even going simply by the photos, you’ll notice that the Brown Sugar waffle is just different than the others. It’s stellar.

I have to disagree with you about Boon Fly Cafe. I was there the day after Christmas and ordered the chicken and waffles, and I was thoroughly disappointed. The chicken was decent at best, the waffle was nothing special, and the combined dish was disappointing enough that I don’t plan to ever return.